Views from Bangkok's canals

Had the opportunity to make a brief visit to Bangkok a couple of weeks ago. With only time to do one tourist type activity we headed on the Skytrain to take a longboat on the canals. It was easy to see why the country was so badly affected by flooding due to excess rains over this last year.

Diesel station for boats

Time for some Tagalog

Magandag umaga: Good morning

Since so many people speak English in Manila, ranging from functional to perfect, I am struggling to find any need to learn Tagalog or Filipino. It seems PC to call it Filipino but no-one I have spoken to in Manila who is from here calls it anything but Tagalog. When I went out to lunch with some of my colleagues a few weeks ago they tried to teach me a few things but I wasn't a very brilliant student. What I did learn was that Spanish would get me a little further on some things that I would have expected, no where close to understanding but enough to recognise a few words and more words than I would have expected - numbers I can do in Spanish, almost all the days of the week and months and they will be understood as Tagalog.

So now for your test in Tagalog - 10 words and phrases to see how you do. Those who speak Spanish will have a good head start in most of the words I've selected

Tagalog
1. Basura
2. Pasahero
3.Yelo
4. Elektrisidad
5. Turista
6. Oo (po), siyempre
7. Hindi (po)
8. Salamat
9. Anong oras?
10. Kumusta!
11. Ebanghelyo (a bonus one, I know 11 isn't 10!)

Answers below - gap left to try and avoid inadvertent cheating - those who really want to cheat will do so even if I put this on a separate page!!


English and Spanish equivalents
1. Rubbish/trash (En) or Basura (Sp)
2. Passenger (En) or Pasajero (Sp)
3. Ice (En) or Hielo (Sp)
4. Electricity or Electricidad
5. Tourist or Turista
6. Yes, of course or Si, claro
7. No
8. Thankyou or Gracias - OK no similarities in English and Spanish it's simply my first Tagalog word
9.What time? o A que hora?
10. Hello or Hola but you can see the Como esta? How are you link? If you just say the word.
11. Gospel or Evangelio

It seems Tagalog doesn't have the multiple forms of you but if you want to show respect to someone, especially if they are older than you, you add "po" to the phrase. However I was warned this can cause offence if someone isn't enough older than you as they might think you are saying they are old, one of those things you decide as a foreigner if you try and get it wrong you hope the other person gives you lots of grace in your execution as a ignorant Banyaga (foreigner).

Hungry anyone?

Found food in Hong Kong last weekend very photogenic but not very appetising. Tried one meal but was unable to finish the vegetable curry and faro dumplings, the taste of the dumpling was all wrong as was the texture of the curry. Then I really struggled with the concept of picking my fresh seafood from an on site aquarium.

Food is often one of the biggest challenges and can be one of the greatest pleasures in living in a new country. Not only are you confronted by all sorts of new foods and simply trying to figure out what they are, how to eat them and whether you like them or think your taste buds can adapt to them, there is also the challenge of working out how to buy the raw ingredients, what they are and how to cook them. I remember cooking revolting calaloo before I learnt you had to cut the stem out or appalling a friend in Guyana when I cooked squash without peeling it first. Of course western style supermarkets in Manila mean I can choose to stay with only the known foodstuffs but that doesn't seem very adventurous.

I do think that adjusting to Chinese cuisine and cooking would be a real challenge for the Westerner, it's perhaps the hardest cuisine to get enthusiastic about. Meanwhile, I get a desire for gallo pinto or nacatamales (Nicaragua) or chicken curry and roti or salt fish and bake (Guyana) about as often as I crave fish and chips or roast beef and Yorkshire pudding (England) showing the ability to adapt.

A long way from....

Buddha at Ngong Ping, Hong Kong is a long way from.....

Our Best Export?

Have you ever wondered what your home nation's best export or legacy to the world is? To be honest I never really have, perhaps having pessimistic tendencies I tend to be more acutely aware of many of the not so good things or attitudes that Britain has given to the world, however that is not entirely fair as all nations, like all people, give both good and bad.

So an advertisement that I saw on Malaysian TV last week caught my attention when it asked what Europe's best gift to the world was, I thought it was a trailer for a documentary or a travel company as it considered the options of history, architecture, culture and philosophy, but in Malaysia I really should have known better the best thing of course was our football matches! Malaysian Airlines are even the sponsor of one of the English Premier League sides.

The back page of the daily newspapers where the biggest sports events should appear has the English Premiership results and league table as well as reviews of the match. In fact if I talk to someone in Malaysia they almost without doubt know more than I do and I could watch just about every match of the season on televisions in restaurants. It is a little strange when foreigners are more interested in your national sport than you are.

Low Cost Asian Style

Having become used to non-low cost airlines and even being able to upgrade using my airmiles from time to time I was not thrilled by the prospect of having to return to low cost, nothing included flying. I tried to remember what life on RyanAir or EasyJet had been like and stock up on drinks and snacks for the flight as well as wondering if I really might have to pay to use the toilet as one of the European low cost airlines had threatened to do. At least we had been able to pre-reserve our seats, although there was possibly a charge for that. There wasn't a hierarchy of smaller and smaller seats as per Spirit, the US low cost carrier to Nicaragua, nor a free for all as everyone pushed for seats.

True to form the flight was an hour late and we had to walk out to the plane, which did not raise my expectations. However on boarding I was pleasantly surprised the plane was new and comfortable with reasonable leg room. No entertainment and yes food an drinks were purchased but at just over £2 for a hot chocolate and a rather strange cheese roll (not bad just strange, I guess it would seem less strange if I had a Nicaraguan mindset rather than the idea of a cheese sandwich) I can't really complain. But they had a nice magazine highlighting their destinations which had the good effect of making me feel more positive about the Philippines – that there are places visiting and I'm not quite at the end of the world.

Clearly the definition of turbulence worth advising us about over the South China Sea isn't the same as my expectation it constantly feels more bumpy than I'd like but everyone else doesn't seem too perturbed.

The flight crew (not the pilots I'm pleased to report!) even played a game with the passengers giving away little pouches as prizes, so as a low cost carrier goes so far I'm reasonably impressed with Cebu Pacific.

Words

Words – those building blocks of communication, building blocks since even with the right words our personal differences can mean we interpret those building blocks differently with all those misunderstandings that can occur. Having spent five years communicating mainly in my second language Spanish I know the frustration of not being able to find the right word and even sometimes not being able to remember the proper word in my mother tongue. In Nicaragua I needed to be able to find those words now living and working between Malaysia and the Philippines I can be lazy as I can survive in English wherever I am and in work my colleagues speak at least as good English as me as I still recover from my Spanglish episodes.

Still I aspire to be able to at least to do some basic greetings etc in the local language, in Malaysia that is officially Bahasa Malaysia or Malay as it gets called in English. As will any language that uses the Roman letter system learning to read some words is easier than saying them, although I am led to believe Malay like Spanish is a phonetic language so you should be able to figure out how to  say the words when you read them, unlike in English. I thought I'd share a few of the words I've learnt to read, you'll see if you read them it should be fairly easy to work out what they mean at least if I give you the clue that they are mostly signs you see around town or places or services. I've put the answers below but I'll let you guess first, the first few should be easy

Words in Malay

1.      Teksi

2.      Bas

3.      Stesen

4.      Butik

5.      Imigresen

6.      Trafik

7.      Polis

8.      Keluar

9.      Masuk

10.  Pandu Cermat

Words in English

1.      Taxi

2.      Bus

3.      Station

4.      Boutique

5.      Immigration

6.      Traffic

7.      Police

8.      Exit

9.      Entry

10.  Drive Carefully.

Officially Filipino is the national language of the Philippines but apparently the principal base is Tagalog so it seems most of the Filipinos, at least in the Manila area, call it Tagalog. The main language of education is English which also allows me the privilege of laziness. So far I've learnt “salamat” - thankyou, “bay” for bye and “kumusta” which for anyone who knows Spanish maybe shouldn't be such a surprise that it works as “hello”. I find listening to Tagalog interesting as I haven't got a clue what is being said but every now and again I hear a word that is from English or Spanish that I understand clearly in the middle of a conversation of which I am completely clueless, like the safety briefing on the plane where they mentioned “safety card” and “salvavidas” which is lifejackets in Spanish. So in Tagalog it seems I have words but not enough to enable any communication!